What are the best hotel promos for May 2017?

UPDATE – APRIL 2024:  This article is now out of date, but don’t worry.  We produce a monthly summary of the top hotel bonus point offers – please click HERE or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ menu above.  Thank you.

Hilton Honors is offering a 100% bonus when you buy points by 14th May 2024. Click here to buy.

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Welcome to our monthly round-up of the best hotel promotions currently running.  All of the information in this article can also be found on our ‘Hotel Offers’ page which contains details of all of the current offers, together with links to our major articles on each hotel scheme.  However, a positive response from readers means I will also now be running this monthly article as a handy summary of what is going on.

Where should you credit your stays this month?

You are, to be honest, spoilt for choice at the moment.  I run through the options below.  Remember that the Marriott and Starwood offers don’t kick off for another 10 days.

If you aren’t staying with a major brand, don’t forget the new Avios promotion from Kaligo.com.  You will receive 5,000 Avios with £500 of cumulative spend or 10,000 Avios with £1,000 of cumulative spend before 11th July (stays can be later). Details are in this article.

Here are the current deals on offer:

IHG (Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, InterContinental, Indigo, Staybridge Suites etc)

The Summer version of IHG’s ‘Accelerate’ is probably the best choice for most people with lighter schedules.  As targets are personalised it is totally dependent on what you were offered but you should be able to rack up a significant number of bonus points with just a few nights.

‘Accelerate’ runs until 31st August.  This is my main article on the offer.

Everyone has individual targets, but they are generally fairly easy.  You can earn 30,000+ bonus points with the points starting to flow from your first stay.

I have this for 48,900 points:

• 5,000 points for a stay before 30th June
• 2,500 points on my next stay
• 10,000 points for staying five nights
• 5,600 points for staying two weekends (Fri / Sat or Sat / Sun)
• 11,200 points for staying in IHG hotels in two different countries outside the UK
• 3,600 points for booking a Bonus Points Package
• 11,000 points for completing four of the five targets above, excluding the June bonus

Even with my modest number of planned IHG stays (two!) I should be able to hit most of these targets and I should be able to slot in another night if necessary to ensure that I earn the full amount.

You need to register for ‘Accelerate’ – the link is here, where you will also find your personalised targets.  The IHG home page is here.

Hilton (Hampton, Conrad, Waldorf-Astoria etc)

The Hilton offer looks good and is very straightforward.  You will receive double base points on every stay until 31st August.  Diamond members will receive triple points.

I wrote about this offer here.  If you have top tier status with another hotel programme, Hilton will match you to Diamond for 90 days which will allow you to receive triple points – I explain how to do it in this article.

The Hilton home page is here.  You MUST register for double points by visiting this page of hilton.com.

Club Carlson (Radisson Blu, Park Inn, Park Plaza, Radisson Red)

Club Carlson has an even more generous offer, especially if your stay involves a Sunday or a Monday night.

The headline details are:

triple points on all stays before 30th June

5000 extra bonus points if your stay includes a Sunday or Monday (and 10000 points if it includes both!)

3000 extra bonus points for your first app booking

This has the potential to be very generous indeed if you stay the right combination of nights – it is possibly you could back 50% of the cost of your stay in points!  My article on the promotion is here.

Le Club AccorHotels

Le Club AccorHotels is still offering a generous ‘triple Avios’ promotion until 30th June.

This is good for stays at Novotel, Sofitel, Pullman, Mercure, Ibis, M Gallery etc.

You will earn at least 7.5 Avios per €1 you spend, except at Ibis where the rate is lower.  If you have Accor status you will earn even more.  A £500 Novotel stay would earn you 4,500 Avios points which is certainly not to be sniffed at.

The promo is a little fiddly and you need to send the Avios to Iberia Plus, not BA, before moving them across to BA via ‘Combine My Avios’.  Full details are in this article.  The Accor home page is here.

Confusingly, Accor is running a second promotion alongside this one for stays of 2+ nights.

Until 3rd September, you will receive 500 bonus points on your first 2+ night stay, 2500 bonus points on your 2nd 2+ night stay and 3000 bonus points on your third 2+ night stay.  The snag is that all rooms must be booked by 23rd May.  My article on this offer is here.

Rember that 1 Accor point = 1 Avios point, if converted via Iberia, or 2 Eurocents off a future booking.  3 x 2-night bookings would earn you a maximum of €120 of credit or 6,000 Avios.

There is also a third Accor offer running which I will cover later this week.  Register at this page and you will receive 500 bonus Accor points on your next UK / Ireland Accor stay (worth 500 Avios or €10) and 1,000 points on your 2nd UK / Ireland stay (worth 1,000 Avios or €20).  Stays must be completed by 31st December and booked by 19th July.

World of Hyatt

Hyatt has its own double points offer.  Called ‘Double Points for Being You’ (?!), it is a simple offer.  You will receive double World of Hyatt base points on all stays between 1st April and 30th June, starting with your second stay.

Full details can be found in this article.  Remember that you won’t receive any bonus on your first stay during the offer period.

Starwood (St Regis, Westin, Sheraton, Element, W, Luxury Collection etc)

I wrote about the new Starwood promotion in another article today.  It is a simple one but comes with a small catch – it requires a stay of 2 nights or more.

2+ night stays between 27th May and 4th September will earn double points.  If your stay includes a Friday or Saturday night, the entire stay will earn triple points.

Registration is required via this page of the Starwood Preferred Guest website.  Check that your chosen hotel is on the list of those taking part.

I recommend this offer if you have a high value, multi-night trip planned, especially if it takes in a Friday or Saturday night.

Marriott (Renaissance, Ritz-Carlton etc)

The new Marriott Rewards offer, ‘Infinite Points’, covers the same dates as the Starwood offer – 27th May to 4th September.

You must register in advance via this website.

You earn no bonus for your first stay between 27th May and 4th September.  After that, you receive 2,000 bonus Marriott Rewards points for your 2nd and subsequent stays.

You also receive 2,000 additional Marriott Rewards bonus points for your 2nd and subsequent brands, so there is the potential to receive 4,000 bonus points per stay if you can brand-hop.

Because there is no minimum stay needed and because the bonus is a fixed amount, this offer works best for someone doing shorter and cheaper stays.  Don’t forget to register here.

Conclusion

The current offers are looking attractive.

Having a choice of:

at least 7.5 Avios per €1 from Accor (Novotel, Sofitel, Mercure etc)

or

triple points from Club Carlson plus 5000 points for Sunday and Monday nights plus 3000 points for an app booking

or

double or triple Hilton or Starwood bonus points 

or

a potential 30,000+ fairly easy points via IHG’s Accelerate offer

is not a bad choice to have!

And, if you aren’t planning a stay at a major brand, read this article to see how you can earn 5,000 or 10,000 bonus Avios by booking hotels via third party booking site Kaligo.com before 11th July.

PS.  If you booking a luxury hotel, remember that we can offer you exclusive additional benefits at Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, Peninsula and similar hotels.  Click here for details of our luxury hotel booking service in association with Bon Vivant / Virtuoso.  Feedback from readers who have used this service so far has been excellent.

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Hotel offers update – April 2024:

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

Want to buy hotel points?

• Hilton Honors is offering a 100% bonus when you buy points by 14th May 2024. Click here.